<p>A reality check. After one gets past Harvard, few folks on the street have a clue who is in the Ivy league. And for most of those who have heard about it, they think it is a small sports conference made up of some teams that used to be good 60 or 70 years ago. Duke is known for its basketball team, Stanford because of Tiger Woods and as a school everyone in the Pac 10 beats up on (except Washington). Most people know their local flagship U, especially if it is in a major conference. Most do not know many of their own state’s public or private schools. Most of those who care about college prestige or rankings, or top tier etc. are the the students or alums of those schools. Nobody else really knows about them or cares.</p>
<p>I’ve grown fond of ivy-grad. Its almost like internet performance art with him/her, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. And to idad, stanford isn’t the doormat of the pac-10. Their major sports haven’t been up to snuff in the last couple of years, but they are one of the strongest athletic schools in the country, winning the sears cup about ten times in the last couple of decades.</p>
<p>Ivy_grad, you mean the anti-non-Ivy campaign. If anything, people on this forum always hold the Ivies in the highest regard. I for one don’t recall saying that Michigan is better than Dartmouth. In fact, I always praise the Ivies. It is you who insists that Dartmouth is far better than Michigan. </p>
<p>Secondly, most highly educated people I know cannot name you the 8 Ivy League Schools. Only Ivy Leaguers can. If you ask the highly educated people I know who went to Nothwestern, Duke, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Michigan and other top universities, non of them would be able to list you more than 4…maybe 5 Ivies. I mean, everybody who is highly educated knows that H,Y and P are Ivies, but after that, they play the guessing game. They are as likely to say Stanford or Georgetown as they are to say Columbia and Brown. And that’s the “highly educated”. If you ask your typical college grad, the one that attended the University of Arizona or the University of Georgia, I doubt theyr would be able to name you more than 2 or 3 Ivies.</p>
<p>“Elitist”. I love the use of this term on this board as if it were calling someone a leper.</p>
<p>Let’s call a spade a spade: people want to be “elitists” even if they don’t want to admit it.</p>
<ul>
<li>Elitists are well-educated</li>
<li>Elitists are high earners</li>
<li>Elitists have power</li>
<li>Elitists matter</li>
</ul>
<p>In this Darwinian society, Elitists win. Plain and simple.</p>
<p>Let’s analyze your typical student / parent:</p>
<p>Parents want their children to study hard in school. Why? To get the best education possible and graduate from college.
Why do they want them to go to a good college? To get a good job.
Why do they want to get a good job? To make money.
Why do they want to make money? To provide for their family.
Why do they want to provide for their family? To give their kids the best opportunities.
Why do they want their kids to study hard? … anyone see a pattern here?</p>
<p>Everyone in their own way (by sheer virtue of your association on this website) is exercising his/her own “inner” elitist.</p>
<p>And I say good luck to all of you on that journey - and I really mean that.</p>
<p>I encourage and applaud everyone who tries to better themselves.</p>
<p>Ivy_grad, there is justified elitism and unjustified elitism. The former can be accepted if not condoned…the latter simply looks ridiculous, like an orangutan trying to play the violin!</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>an orangutan playing the violin huh? you kind of lost me there…</p>
<p>At any rate, pray tell, what would be an instance of “justified elitism”?</p>
<p>“Why do they want them to go to a good college? To get a good job.”</p>
<p>That’s not always the case. My parents wanted me to go expand myself and experience new things. They wanted me to find out what I was meant to do, however much money I made, and work towards making myself a better person. Then again, my parents are hippies, so what do they know.</p>
<p>I lost you Ivy_Grad? Well, if I see an Orangutan playing a ciolin, I would probably laugh because it is silly. </p>
<p>As for what is justified elitism, I guessit depends on one’s own definition of “justified” doesn’t it? To me, justified elitism is to know one is good based on their own accomplishments. Unjustified elitism is to assume that one is better than others based on those accomplishments. In other words, confidence vs arrogance.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, this sad reality says volumes about either the sheer indifference or ignorance (or combination of the two) of the general public more than it does about this country’s elite academic institutions and its respective graduates (or anything elite for that matter).</p>
<p>I mean, your average American couldn’t find the Middle East with two hands and a map. Your average American has no idea who the Secretary of Treasury is. Your average American has no idea who their own state Senators are. Your average American could not explain what the federal deficit is.</p>
<p>All you have to do is watch an episode of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” to see just how downright ignorant your average American is - it’s really a sad state of affairs.</p>
<p>Besides, who the heck wants to be average, seriously? </p>
<p>Would you want to have the intelligence of the average American, or the general level of knowledge of the average American? Count me out on that thought.</p>
<p>So you’ll forgive me if I don’t exactly hold the highest opinion of what the “general public” thinks or knows.</p>
<p>Alexandre - What do you mean by “highly educated?” People that went to elite schools, people with advanced degrees…?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hey now, Stanford basketball isn’t half-bad. 
And ESPN sometimes gives a shout-out to the “kids with blue-painted faces who got 1500s on their SATs.” ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL, pretty much, yeah. But the problem with short answers is that they leave too much of an opportunity for people to jump on ya. :p</p>
<p>I mean people who went to elite universities AND got advanced degrees, be it a PhD in Engineering from CMU or MIT (with undergraduate degrees from CMU and Cal respectively), an executive MBA from Wharton (with an undergraduate degree from Stnaford), an MBA from Kellogg (with an undergraduate degree from Michigan), a Law degree from Michigan (with an undergrafduate degree from Swarthmore), a PhD in Engineering from Stanford (with an undergraduate degree from Duke) etc…None of those can list the 8 Ivies correctly. Most of them cannot list more than 4 or 5. </p>
<p>Ivy_Grad, like I said, it isn’t merely the “average” American that cannot name all 8 Ivies (or even 6 or 7 for that matter), it is even the highly educated and cultured Americans who cannot.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I didn’t notice that this was part of the definition of “elitist.” Plenty of poor people can be elitist, plenty of elitists could be dilettantes, or powerless, as well as worthless.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What does it have anything do with my language?</p>
<p>
Most educated people do not advocate Social Darwinism. </p>
<p>I don’t necessarily think you meant to here, but be careful when you invoke the word Darwin in a context external to biology.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree, but that’s why I said we need to look at the major for which the prospective students are applying before we can say, “this school is better than that school, no brainer, period”. Of course there’re some exceptions, for example when those schools are famous for similar depts, e.g. Stanford is a better pick than Michigan. Another case is when those schools are very different prestige/reputation wise, e.g. Penn is a better pick than Penn State.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL, I’ve told you that most people would only affiliate the word Ivy with H,Y or P. Even my profs couldn’t list all of the Ivy league schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It was only a few years ago when Stanford had the #1 ranked basketball team in the country. Stanford was ranked #1 several times in the 2003-2004 season, including the final AP poll of that year. This was the year they went 29-1, the team that had Josh Childress starring on it.</p>
<p><a href=“http://gostanford.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/031504aab.html[/url]”>http://gostanford.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/031504aab.html</a></p>
<p>In fact, throughout the mid90’s to the mid 2000’s, Stanford basketball was one of the elite basketball teams in the country. obtaining the #1 ranking a number of times. These were the teams with Brevin Knight, Casey Jacobsen, the Collins brothers, Curtis Borchardt, Mark Madsen, and others. Stanford also made it to the Final Four in 1998.</p>
<p>Consider the following stats of the following website, a site that details Stanford’s AP basketball rankings up until 2001. That doesn’t include Stanford’s continued strength from 2001-2004, when Stanford again reached #1 several times. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sportsstats.com/AP/Stanford.html[/url]”>http://www.sportsstats.com/AP/Stanford.html</a></p>
<p>In fact, I believe that Stanford was the last Pac-10 team to reach the #1 AP ranking in basketball. Like I said, Stanford was the #1 team in the final AP poll of the 2003-2004 season. No Pac-10 team since then has gotten to #1. UCLA, Arizona, and Washington have been good, but not ranked #1. </p>
<p>As far as football is concerned, I would point out that Stanford was the Pac-10 co-champion in 1999 and went to the Rose Bowl that year. Since that year, only 5 other teams have won the Pac-10, one of them obviously being USC, who has won 4 straight conference titles. </p>
<p><a href=“Pac-12 Conference - Wikipedia”>Pac-12 Conference - Wikipedia;
<p>Even Washington football has actually been very good historically. Only lately has this been untrue. Washington won the conference co-championship in 2000. Heck, Washington even shared the national championship in 1991, going 12-0 and winning the Rose Bowl. </p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I-A_national_football_championship[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I-A_national_football_championship</a></p>
<p>In fact, in the last 50 years, only 2 teams from the Pac-10 have ever won the national championship in football - USC and Washington. And in fact, only 5 teams from the Pac-10 have ever won the national football championship. Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State, and Washington State have never won the national championship. Stanford has actually won 2 national championships - in 1926 and 1940. That’s actually the 2nd most of any school in the Pac-10 (the top obviously being USC with 11 national championships)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, let’s give common people a little more credit than that. I’m fairly certain that most common people have also heard of Yale.</p>
<p>My dad works at usnwr, here’s an unofficial ranking:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>MIT
Caltech</li>
<li>Columbia
Duke</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>John Hopkins</li>
<li>Brown
Northwestern</li>
<li>Wash U
Cornell</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>UC-Berkeley</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Emory
Georgetown</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon
Tufts</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>University of Virginia
Wake Forest</li>
<li>Michigan
UNC</li>
<li>William and Mary
USC</li>
</ol>
<p>Notre Dame … is it that good?</p>